1. Scenario! X occurs. 1a. Backtrack. How the eff did that happen? What needs to have occured to get here from canon? (Optional.) 2. Character. Who fits best/reacts most interestingly to/is required by X? 3. Threading. X + Who = Y, "X as affected by Who" ("plot"). 4. Addition. Y continues, X1 occurs. 5. Repeat 1-4 with X1 to get Y1 ("subplot", "other side of crossover", "plot as seen by antagonist or foil"). 6. Weaving. Y affects Y1, vice versa. 7. Begetting. Y + Y1 = X2. 8. Repeat as necessary.
Plotting sometimes feels like weaving, and sometimes feels like... a very complicated game of pachinko or something, where I keep throwing balls in and they go bouncing off each other.
Characterization is entirely different. For convenience's sake, I call it "listening", but it's usually a mix of visuals that I only sometimes have to translate into text. The characters are doing things in my head, but I rarely hear them. The synapses being fired are visual, book text and movie motion. It's sort of like reading in reverse.
Different stories have different feels starting with their universe. DC/MK is black and white, gritty murders and laughing thieves and a shadowy murderous syndicate, with a few points of jewel-tone color studding it. It's newspaper crisp, light and rippable and crinkly. HP and YYH have grown soft and comfortable with wear, but have gotten almost completely interwoven in my head and are heavy like upholstery cloth. HxH is the third point and center of the DC/MK triangle spectrum of life and death; it's colored like jungle and has a certain primal vitality to it that demands present tense.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2007-09-17 05:21 pm (UTC)1a. Backtrack. How the eff did that happen? What needs to have occured to get here from canon? (Optional.)
2. Character. Who fits best/reacts most interestingly to/is required by X?
3. Threading. X + Who = Y, "X as affected by Who" ("plot").
4. Addition. Y continues, X1 occurs.
5. Repeat 1-4 with X1 to get Y1 ("subplot", "other side of crossover", "plot as seen by antagonist or foil").
6. Weaving. Y affects Y1, vice versa.
7. Begetting. Y + Y1 = X2.
8. Repeat as necessary.
Plotting sometimes feels like weaving, and sometimes feels like... a very complicated game of pachinko or something, where I keep throwing balls in and they go bouncing off each other.
Characterization is entirely different. For convenience's sake, I call it "listening", but it's usually a mix of visuals that I only sometimes have to translate into text. The characters are doing things in my head, but I rarely hear them. The synapses being fired are visual, book text and movie motion. It's sort of like reading in reverse.
Different stories have different feels starting with their universe. DC/MK is black and white, gritty murders and laughing thieves and a shadowy murderous syndicate, with a few points of jewel-tone color studding it. It's newspaper crisp, light and rippable and crinkly. HP and YYH have grown soft and comfortable with wear, but have gotten almost completely interwoven in my head and are heavy like upholstery cloth. HxH is the third point and center of the DC/MK triangle spectrum of life and death; it's colored like jungle and has a certain primal vitality to it that demands present tense.